The former mayor of Salt Lake City says the National Security Agency’s monitoring of all emails and texts coming in and out of the city during the 2002 Winter Olympics is "the greatest scandal so far of this century."

"When we brought the Olympics to this city, nobody agreed that we would trade off our fundamental civil rights for the government to come in and spy on us," Rocky Anderson told the Salt Lake Tribune.

"For them to have done this to the people in Salt Lake City in every single instance was a federal felony under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

Anderson, a noted civil rights attorney, is exploring possible legal actions against the NSA.
He also says the United States should be barred from hosting any more Olympic games until the NSA snooping controversies have been cleared up.

The Wall Street Journal, citing unidentified sources, reported last week that the NSA had monitored email and text traffic at the Utah Winter Olympics. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said he was willing to "cut them a little slack" since the winter games followed so closely behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

But Anderson said Herbert’s view ignores "the question that goes to the core of what this country is and whether we live under the rule of law or the rule of tyrants."